Nneka Ogwumike wins the 2016 MVP Award
- By Shorty
- Sep 28, 2016
- 2 min read
The WNBA has announced that Los Angeles Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike has been named the 2016 Most Valuable Player. Receiving 31 out of 39 first place votes, it was almost an unanimous decision. MVP candidate Tina Charles received 8 first place votes with Maya Moore, Elena Delle Donne, and Candace Parker rounding out the remaining top five votes.
A look at the full MVP voting results.
My observation of the list is. I presumed Tina would have gotten more than 8 votes considering the hype around her battle with Nneka for MVP. However I wasn't surprised that Nneka and Tina were the only two players to receive first place votes. Tina lead the way in 2nd place with 17, Maya in 3rd with 19, Elena in 4th with 20 and Candace in 5th with 12. It was nice to see Rookie of the Year candidate Breanna Stewart receive 10 5th place votes in her first pro career. Of course one of my concerns was if the committee would somehow penalize Nneka for having Candace who is a 2x MVP winner in her own right, but it's good to know that it wasn't the case at all.
In my opinion there was no one more deserving than Nneka winning the MVP award. Her list of accomplishments throughout the season includes shooting an astounding 66.5% from the field, which ranks second in WNBA history, breaking a record for most consecutive field goals making 23 straight, and going 12 0f 12 (and 7 0f 7 from the FT line) in a single game against the Dallas Wings. When it comes to traditional and advance stats, her numbers were just unmatched as I have written in my two previous articles Tina Charles and Nneka Ogwumike Are Making a Case for MVP and Stats Update for Ogwumike and Charles you can see that even with LA's second half fumble, she was still able to produce at a high level. Tina Charles deserved to be in the conversation, but it was Nneka who was clearly the front runner and has proved that she is the league's Most Valuable Player.
Note: Nneka Ogwumike is the third Sparks player to receive MVP honors making Los Angeles the only franchise in the league to earn a total of 6 MVP awards - Lisa Leslie (2001, 2004, 2006) Candace Parker (2008, 2013). Nneka is also the first Stanford alumni in WNBA history to win the award.
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